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King Leopold II, whose rule of the Congo Free State was marked by severe atrocities, violence and major population decline.. Even before his accession to the throne of Belgium in 1865, the future king Leopold II began lobbying leading Belgian politicians to create a colonial empire in the Far East or in Africa, which would expand and enhance Belgian prestige. [2]
Leopold II [a] (9 April 1835 – 17 December 1909) was the second King of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, and the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908.
In Belgian public discourse, King Leopold II of Belgium (r. 1865–1909), who ruled the Congo Free State as his private property from 1885 to 1908, is generally held to bear the primary responsibility for the atrocities committed there in that colonial period. In the early 21st century, statues of Leopold II have been regularly defaced or ...
King Leopold II in the late 1800s. Leopold thought overseas colonies were of critical importance to become a great power, and worked to establish colonial possessions for Belgium. The national legislature did not authorize the colonial enterprise, and Leopold eventually acquired a colony in the Congo for himself with money loaned by the Belgian ...
The picture as printed in King Leopold's Rule in Africa. Nsala of Wala in the Nsongo District (Abir Concession) is a photograph published by Edmund Dene Morel in his book King Leopold's Rule in Africa, in 1904. [1] The image depicts a Congolese man named Nsala examining the severed foot and hand of his five-year-old daughter, Boali.
Cartoon by British caricaturist Francis Carruthers Gould depicting King Leopold II, and the Congo Free State A 1906 Punch cartoon by Edward Linley Sambourne depicting Leopold II as a rubber snake entangling a Congolese rubber collector. Leopold ran up high debts with his Congo investments before the beginning of the worldwide rubber boom in the ...
Force Publique soldiers photographed in 1900 Two Force Publique soldiers at Fort Shinkakasa.Shown are the blue and red uniforms worn until 1915. To command his Force Publique, Leopold II was able to rely on a mixture of volunteers (regular officers detached from the Belgian Army), mercenaries [4] and former officers from the armies of other European nations, especially those of Scandinavia ...
There are two statues of Leopold II in France, both located in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, a town on the Mediterranean coast in the Alpes-Maritimes department in Southeastern France. Leopold II had bought a lot of real estate in the Cap Ferrat since 1896. [35] The oldest statue is a bronze medal of Leopold II embedded into a stone pier, erected in ...